Sunday, September 30, 2012

Big Tarpon, Little Sunburst

Sitting, waiting, in the early morning
stillness. Maybe the sun will show a little artistic gumption and
paint the sky this morning. The night is just beginning to surrender. I
hear a big splash, then another. Dolphins, I think. In the darkness, I can just
barely make out the movement on the water. More splashes, right in
front of me. I can see the roiling of the water, all around. There
must be several. It's not uncommon to see a small pod moving along,
rolling, blowing. But I wasn't hearing blowing, just splashing, and
they weren't very close together the way they usually are when they're traveling, but rather they were spread out a bit. They must be
feeding, or playing. I strain to see a fin or a fluke in the dim
light. As it gets lighter, I can see the splashes. Then I realize, it's
not dolphins. It's tarpon! Big ones! There must be a dozen or more of the big fish churning the surface.

The splashes subside. I return to the
business at hand – my semiannual quest to make a photograph of the
Sanibel lighthouse silhouetted by the orb of the rising sun. The sky
at the horizon begins to take on a nice deep orange, reflected in the
water. Nothing special, but I pop off a few. Faint crepuscular rays
begin to form. I hope they will develop into a glorious sunburst, but
no, it never achieves grandeur.

The glow of light concentrates
behind the lighthouse, but I can tell that the wispy clouds are too thin
to let the sun pretend to be a big red rubber ball. It will blow the silhouette away
with blinding light. And so it does.

Once again I didn't get what I hoped
for. But I did get a nice subtle sunburst. And, I shared my
solitude with the tarpon.

3 comments:

I love your photos and I am glad that you choose to share them with the rest of us. I know for myself, that I too often forget that what I really enjoy, and the reason I go out is to witness the sunrise, to see the dolphins, or in this case, the tarpon.

In my case,IF I am able to capture the sunrise, so much the better, but I still have the memory of the morning shared with nature.

I share your appreciation, Don. If getting up in the dark and going out with the no-see-ums depended on being rewarded with great photographs, I would have stopped doing it long ago. I enjoy the quiet, the solitude, communing with nature. Often I walk along a beach and just enjoy, having left the camera and gear in the car. It's one of life's pleasures.